What will be left after the Liberals?

I don’t know if you lived in B.C. back when we were actually building community services instead of tearing them apart, but I did.  I was one of the taxpayers helping fund it all.

So how am I supposed to feel as that same taxpayer, watching all that investment be dismantled because we’ve got a short-sighted, self-interested political party at the helm with some very sketchy ethics?

People, what are we doing here? Please tell me we’re not actually prepared to just sit back in seething silence until the next provincial election in 2013. I think I might have to move away if that’s the case, just to stop my head from exploding.

What gets me the most is the sheer arrogance of the decision-making in the last couple of years.  A colleague recently reminded me that the same arrogance gripped the New Democrats in their final term, so maybe it’s just what happens when parties get to believing their own myths.

The government’s active role in the potential ruination of community services is ever-present on my mind at the moment. The funding levels and service structure for social care are changing so fast in B.C. right now that it really is like the Wild West out there, and I think I can say with certainty that no one has any idea where it will all lead.

Dressed up variously as “transformation” and “greater community integration and independence,” the government is flailing around for savings by dismantling, starving and squeezing services that in some cases have been in place for decades. With no social policy to guide cuts and changes, it’s essentially snipping random holes in the safety net, with no predicting where things will fall out.

But even if you don’t give a hoot about social issues, there’s a lot more to worry about when it comes to the B.C. Liberals.

The Basi-Virk stuff, for instance.

First you’ve got the high-flying guy in government who thinks it’s OK to take a $50,000 bribe from a developer wanting property taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Then you’ve got the very government that bred a guy like that telling us we should just accept their word that the bribe had no effect on the decision, and never mind that the land did indeed get removed from the reserve.

Then you’ve got the $6 million payoff to cover the legal fees of Dave Basi and Bobby Virk, a decision reached by government mere days before a number of high-profile witnesses were to testify about how much the government knew.

And then to insult us with the explanation that government covered the legal bills because it was clear Basi and Virk could never afford to pay that amount back. How kind. This from the same government that will relentlessly grind people on income assistance to pay back $20.

Before Basi-Virk, there was the HST. I’m not so much bothered by the tax itself, because the work I do keeps me up close and personal to the problems that have resulted from the relentless drive to lower taxes. But the lying definitely offends me.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen - a man of integrity, I once thought - almost had us believing that government hadn’t considered introducing the HST until after the 2009 election.

When the media put the lie to that statement after finding an email from the federal government to Hansen sent two months before the election, the finance minister just kept up the Sergeant Schultz defence of knowing nothing. It was as if sheer repetition alone could make us believe.

I’m sure it must be very difficult to be government these days. People howling at the door for services, less money to go around.

But how is any of that helped by starving services that prevent much bigger, costlier problems from developing? And why should I believe anything the government says on that front or any other now that I know that bribes, lying and the paying of hush money are part of the way it does business?

It bothers me a lot that when the bill for failed social care finally comes due years from now, the B.C. Liberals of the moment will be gone and their pivotal role in the tragedy overlooked.  It bothers me more to see our province in the hands of a government that feels so little respect for the people.

I don’t know what the answer is. But it sure isn’t about waiting until 2013.

Read this story out of Indiana and weep. There would have been a time I couldn't have imagined people in B.C. and Canada ever finding themselves in a similar situation, but not anymore.

Here's a very thorough recounting of the terrible injustices going on right now for people with developmental disabilities in B.C. It's from a B.C. blogger who attended a big meeting in Vancouver on Monday over the $22 million in cuts to group homes and services going on right now. Share this information far and wide, and jump on one of the action items at the end of the blog entry. This is wrong!

A disturbing story out of the U.S. on the disproportionate impact the housing crisis is having on black Americans. Some scary figures in here beyond that issue - like the fact that almost five per cent of recent borrowers in the U.S. have lost their house to foreclosure.

I'm in Vancouver tonight, working here for a couple of days. As always, I can't figure out how I feel about this city.
It's beautiful on a day like today - the sun shining, the beautiful mountains aglow in the distance. The high rises in the city core are things of beauty in their own right, catching the sunlight at different angles in the daytime and then turning into sparkling jewels as the night closes in. I drove along the Stanley Park waterfront at dusk today and marvelled at the city scape across the way, perfect right down to the neon-blue and green light spilling down the side of one of the tallest buildings like an electric waterfall.
And yet. Something about a tall city always makes me feel lonely. I don't know what that is - is it the spots of light all signalling other human being out there, yet no way to actually make contact? I'm in one such Rapunzel's tower myself at the moment, on a high enough floor that my only company is the lights from neighbouring glass towers. It just kind of weirds me out.
But earlier tonight, I came out of a day of conferencing, loaded my accordion into my truck, and headed down to the seawall around Stanley Park before the sun set.
I sat there playing music in this incredible sunset, looking at this amazing view of boats and water and beautiful urban landscapes. And it was a real moment.
Then a young couple on bikes rode up and stopped to listen for a couple of songs, which was more or less what happened the last time I played accordion in Stanley Park a year or so ago. That time, a couple passersby had also just dropped onto a bench to enjoy the music.
That's the thing about Vancouver - I feel this lonely vibe when I look out from my glass tower, but at the same time have had special moments in this city that I just don't think would have happened in Victoria. I'm not sure if I could live here, but then again, I'm often not sure I can live in Victoria, either.
But enough with the reflections. I think I'll head out into Vancouver's pretty night streets and find myself a bowl of noodles.